Nation of Change

While many U.S. supermarkets continue to stick their heads in the ground when it comes to potential GMO dangers, Germany’s top supermarkets (behemoths when it comes to European retail food supply) are delivering a big blow to biotech. The German poultry industry will now be forced to once again use non-GMO feed.

Just last Thursday it was announced, with broad consensus, that starting from January 1st 2015, the German Poultry Association (ZDG), will have to stop using GMO feed for both egg and poultry meat production. From this date forward, food retailers will only accept poultry that has been raised on GM-free feed, and milk and eggs which come from cows fed GM-free feed. This will help force GMO distribution companies like Monsanto to look elsewhere for their shady business partners.

Furthermore, last February, the ZDG unilaterally declared that it would stop using GM-free animal feed, following similar moves by other associations in England and Denmark. The ZDG alleged that is was making the change due to a shortage of GMO-free soya, the […]

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Credit: Copyright Save the Rhino International

Humans are killing off species thousands of times faster than nature creates them, new research finds.

The modern rate of extinction across species is 1,000 times that of the background rate before humans began altering the globe and thousands of times faster than the creation of new species, according to a new study in the journal Conservation Biology. The findings echo and expand on previous research published in the journal Science, which also suggested that humans are on the verge of causing a sixth mass extinction on Earth.

“We now know for certain how much faster species are going extinct,” said Stuart Pimm, a conservation ecologist at Duke University and president of the nonprofit conservation group Saving Species.

To put it in concrete terms, Pimm told Live Science, without human activities, the planet should lose a bird species only about once every 1,000 years. In actuality, at least 150 species of birds have gone extinct in the last 500 years alone, according to conservation partnership BirdLife International. [6 […]

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Excerpted from “Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction”

Among the many congratulatory letters George Washington received after assuming the presidency was one from ‘the Convention of the Universal Church, assembled in Philadelphia.” ‘SIR,” it began, ‘Permit us, in the name of the society which we represent, to concur in the numerous congratulations which have been offered to you.” The letter reassured the president that ‘the peculiar doctrine which we hold, is not less friendly to the order and happiness of society, than it is essential to the perfection of the Deity.” One of its signers, Universalist minister John Murray, had known Washington since serving as a chaplain in the Revolutionary War. The minister and his second wife, Judith Sargent Murray, had even stopped to dine with the Washingtons on their way to the Convention. Thanks in large part to their efforts, universal salvation was no longer an obscure creed espoused by a scattered few. Now the Convention sought to establish Universalism as a recognized, socially responsible faith.

Washington responded favorably. ‘GENTLEMEN,” he began, thanking them for their […]

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BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA — In recent years, the evidence that long hours sitting at a desk or on a couch is bad for one’s health has mounted. But new research out of Indiana University suggests a quick five-minute walk every hour can reverse the ill-effects of a person’s hunched posture and sedentary nine-to-five routine.

Not only has research shown sitting to be bad for one’s waistline, blood pressure and cholesterol, some studies have even strongly correlated sitting with reduced life expectancy. In other words: the more you sit, the sooner you’ll expire.

But according to the work of Saurabh Thosar, now a postdoctoral researcher at Oregon Health & Science University, walking — regular and brief — offer a simple solution.

While a doctoral candidate at Indiana’s School of Public Health-Bloomington, Thosar led an experiment that looked at sitting’s ill effects — specifically at the consequences for blood flow, or arterial function. Participants who sat for three hours showed declining arterial function, as expected. But those who walked for five minutes once each hour were able to mostly mitigate that decline. The study included only healthy, non-obese men, ages 20 to 35.

“There is plenty of epidemiological evidence linking sitting time to various chronic diseases and […]

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Jackie Lloyd sells body oils, shea butter, soap and incense after having been laid off from her job as an elementary school cafeteria worker four years ago. (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Sitting at her street vending booth with products arrayed neatly on a sequined purple tablecloth, Jackie Lloyd reflects nostalgically on the days when she had a steady salary and regular hours.

That was four years ago, before the 39-year-old was laid off from her job as an elementary school cafeteria worker and mounting bills forced her to venture into self-employment.

Now the Pico-Union resident hops from location to location, selling body oils, shea butter, soap and incense. She moves when nearby businesses complain or she feels unsafe.

Some days, her sales bring in $150. Others, they don’t break $20.

“If I just had a 9-to-5 job, it’d be guaranteed money,” she said. “Then […]

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